Until the 1960s, the reception in sociology of Max Weber's works in the United States was located largely along three axes. First, his “Protestant ethic thesis” (1930) became the subject of a heated debate, one that endures to this day. It anchored the wide interest throughout the discipline in the sociology of religion and grounded the casting of Weber as an “idealist.” Second, a series of his concepts, all of which were formulated in precise and convincing terms, were welcomed into the young discipline: status groups, bureaucracy, power, authority, and charisma. This took place after the publication of a broadranging and highly successful reader (see Weber 1946a) and the translation by Talcott Parsons (1947) of Part I of Weber's massive analytical treatise, Economy and Society (1968; E&S) (see Zaret 1980). Third, seeking to constitute itself as a rigorous science, the discipline widely adopted Weber's definitions of “objectivity” and “value neutrality” (Weber 1949).

The reception of his works after 1970 underwent a severe transformation. In the spirit of the times, his definitions of “power” and “domination” (Herrschaft) permeated sociology more thoroughly, as did his critique of the bureaucracy and bureaucratization. Far more widely than earlier, he became understood as a non- Marxist theorist of inequality and conflict (Bendix 1962, 1977; Bendix and Roth 1971; Collins 1968, 1975, 1981). This reading of Weber reached its pinnacle in the late 70s and early 80s after the fading of a short- lived enchantment with Karl Marx and various neo- Marxist approaches.

Perhaps it was the intensity of the “conflict Weber” reception in these decades that explains the neglect among American sociologists of a reception in Germany that introduced a “new” Weber. In the studies by Tenbruck (1975) and Schluchter (1979, 1981), a heretofore largely neglected theme pervasive throughout Weber's works drove a wide- ranging discussion. These authors and others (see Riesebrodt 1980; Winckelmann 1980; Seyfarth and Sprondel 1981; Hennis 1983, 1987a, 1987b; Habermas 1984) emphasized his comparative thrust – namely, his long- standing attempts to define the uniqueness of “Western rationalism” and his sweeping investigations into the multiple causes behind the particular pathway followed in the West into the modern epoch. Indeed, some claimed here to have discovered Weber's “major theme” (Tenbruck 1975).